[cc-community] Why the GPL-incompatibility?

Rob Myers rob at robmyers.org
Sat Feb 10 13:38:28 EST 2007


Greg London wrote:

> I'm not sure why CC-BY is incompatible with GNU-GPL.
> 
> If I had to guess, it's probably because CC-BY attribution
> must be made in a way "appropriate to the medium".
> In cc-by works, the attribution must "ripple up" to the
> top. all attribution must end up in the credits to the
> movie at the end of the movie.

Yes I think you're right about that. It's similar to the problem with 
the old BSD license:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#OriginalBSD

> GNU-GPL doesn't have that strong of an attribution requirement.
> Copyright notices must be kept in place, and I think that's
> about it. In a software project, with a "source code" requirement,
> this is fine because the copyright notices are usually in the
> source code, and maintains a history of who has contributed
> to that particular file.

The current GPL-3 draft allows more flexibility in the licenses that it 
is compatible with. One of the things that it allows is author attribution:

http://gplv3.fsf.org/gpl-draft-2006-07-27.html

"b. Additional Requirements.

Additional requirements are terms that further constrain use, 
modification or propagation of covered works. This License affects only 
the procedure for enforcing additional requirements, and does not assert 
that they can be successfully enforced by the copyright holder. Only 
these kinds of additional requirements are allowed by this License:

     * 0) terms that require preservation of specified reasonable legal 
notices or author attributions;"

BY may therefore be compatible with the GPL-3. This depends on whether 
BY's attribution is "reasonable".

- Rob.


More information about the cc-community mailing list